Space Primate Tribute, July 2016 to present, Grand Central Station, New York, NY

Space Primate Tribute is a site specific centrifugally animating augmented reality (AR) work for mobile phone users dedicated to primates who gave their lives to science through the NASA space program from 1948 to 1961, before the first US manned space flight.

In 1957 during the space race, the Soviets successfully launched Sputnik, the first artifical Earth satelitte. That same year in response to Sputnik, the US army erected a Mercury Redstone Rocket in Grand Central Station to ease national fears over three weeks in July. In 1961 the Mercury Redstone-3 was used in NASA's first successful manned space flight, marking the end of primate cargo flights in the US. This tribute is designed for mobile phone users who rely on satellite communication for service. It is built using geolocation type of augmented reality that utilizes satellite triangulation.

This tribute launched in Grand Central Station in July 2016 as a part of a Site Visit for New York Arts Practicum (NYAP) participants. Created using a drawing I exported as a 3d model from Google's Tilt Brush VR app, Blender 3d modeling software's complex model example "Su", Layar augmented reality service, and Nayar - an open source webserver database developed by Thomas Storey, a former NYAP participant!

To view Space Primate Tribute at Grand Central Station, download Layar app on your mobile phone and search for Layar name "albert".